Hostage to emotion

Every now and then I get sick of being told how closed off to emotion I am, and I accuse all those astrology textbooks describing people with Cap Moons as cold, brittle, harsh, and ambitious as being part of the conspiracy!

Speaking for my own Cap Moon, it frequently feels under siege by more feeling types who privilege the immediacy of their intuition and sensory knowledge over those of us who take longer to get there. It has become politically incorrect to make quick judgements about people who are slow with reading and writing; but it seems perfectly acceptable still to consider people slower to access their emotions as having none.

I’m sick of it.

Just because I don’t always express my emotions clearly doesn’t mean I don’t have them. It doesn’t mean anyone has the right to hurt me by insinuating I’m incomplete, damaged, or worst of all, dishonest. Sometimes it takes me two days before I even realise I’ve been hurt, and then they think I’m crazy for bringing it up two days after the event. I’m sick of it!

My emotions are there — trust me, they are, or I wouldn’t be ranting now — but it takes me a longer time to get in touch with them. Usually I have to go through my head first, and slowly and painstakingly dismantle the defences I have constructed to protect those same fragile emotions I’m accused of not having. It may be true that some Cap Moons never want to see past those defences, but some of us do, and have been trying.

Let me try and articulate, in the space of this blog, what feeling feels like to my Cap Moon. It feels like I don’t want to go there. It’s a scary place, yet always in the periphery of my consciousness. I know it’s there but I don’t allow myself to feel too much because I’m afraid of how deep I’ll fall when I do. And I have no means of getting out again. That’s the difference between my Cap Moon and the feeling types — it’s not that I don’t have feelings, it’s that I have not developed a mechanism for dealing with them (I’m trying!).

Everyone has fears, it’s true. But the trouble with the Cap Moon is that it can appear so ‘together’ on the surface, which gets mistaken for aloofness, coldness, or plain snobbery. I’m willing to bet the morass that seethes beneath the surface could well rival any Scorp’s. Scorps revel in the power of those emotions, Caps wonder if they ought to have them at all. As if someone had mistakenly sent them a package meant for another address.

My favourite delineation of the Cap Moon is still Planet Waves’ Eric Francis’. His reading is more nuanced than all those textbooks and he identifies ‘the emotional and spiritual crisis’ in Cap Moons that cuts very close to the quick.

The lives of those with Capricorn moons are almost always characterized, at least for a while, by deep pain, loss and suffering, but they will be the first people to tell you that what doesn’t kill you makes you strong. Pain has turned them into survivors. When it works to the common good, they become unusually adept, practical humanitarians. When it works to everyone’s detriment, they can retreat into themselves, putting up active defenses that seem aggressive. They may pass along the notion that pain builds character, by their actions. They may even convince you they have no heart. Nothing could be further from reality: these are some of the most sensitive people alive; it’s just that they hide their pain so well. Part of how this can be done is by compartmentalizing their feelings. Cap moons are among the best feeling compartmentalizers in the business. This is one way they can avoid necessary change, or set aside their sensitivity when they need to.

I remember feeling a profound sense of relief when I first read the essay many years ago — at last, someone gets it. I even very nearly cried.

If you know someone with a Capricorn Moon, be kind and gentle and patient. Approach them with the delicacy of an expensive antique vase, and you may just be rewarded with more love and loyalty than you had thought possible with anyone.

having a partner with a cap moon, i can completely agree with your post. and loyalty is a hugely overlooked characteristic. cap moons simply manifest emotion differently and that can hurt if you are expecting the more ‘traditional’ responses. i think my virgo sun and venus in the 11th and saturn in leo causes me to be able to see and accept the true reality of the cap mooon. i, too, am not into drama or big demonstrative behaviour but prefer the longterm cap CONSISTENCY of dedication and loyalty over the course of years. sometimes, i do wish for a bit more mush moments but its just not a high priority in the grand scheme – and i KNOW it has nothing to do with depth of feeling.
it has been said recently amongst astrologers that cap is one of the least appreciated signs and i agree. so i just had to pop in with my thoughts on your article.

Hello. Thanks for sharing your emotional experience as a Capricorn Moon owner. A long-time friend of mine recently asked me for advice on how she can be a (long list of positive adjectives) woman. She’s a Libra with Capricorn Moon. My immediate thought was “let down your guard”. My second thought was “she needs a manual to do that”. After a few days (I have Scorpio Moon), I replied that she can show others she cares about them by asking about their lives instead of mass texting/emailing them about her life (we both have Sag rising and are guilty of just presenting a happy face while we’re suffering inside). She replied to my text the next day (no, I wasn’t offended by her slow processing. That means she really thought about it instead of giving me a false response). She thanked me and said that’s the most honest feedback she’s received and asked me when we can catch up. I told her “this weekend. You?” That weekend has come and gone. Haven’t heard back from her. Yet.

I dated a boy who seemed like a man, a Pisces with Capricorn Moon. His mom (a Pisces with Aries Moon) warned me that he doesn’t surprise easily or express his emotions. To her, expressing feelings later means no feelings at all. He wanted to be more mature so badly. He fell into a religious cult that promises to make you a man. It literally turned him into a raving misogynist and homophobe. I was his first lover but never knew he loved me. Until a year after we broke up. I told him “too little, too late” (I have Venus and Mars in Gemini, after all). Many years later, he contacted me on Facebook, again professing his love. I unfriended him shortly after his blistering, homophobic rant against men wearing skinny jeans. His feelings about everything hadn’t changed. Positive: loyal. Negative: muddy.

Another friend is a Sagittarius with Capricorn Moon. Her biggest dream is to be in a committed relationship (preferably marriage) with children. Her every move is building toward that. I read her chart for her and we discussed her fear of being alone (that she said she doesnt share with anyone). She met a man she’s interested in. I called her to see if she was attending a dating biz launch party thrown by a mutual (Capricorn) friend. She said no because she wants to see where her current relationship is going. I haven’t really heard from her since…

I’m a Cancer. I don’t understand Moon in Capricorn. I can feel the deep emotions and sensitivity under lock and key, but they require a lot of keys to access those. The defense mechanism to protect you from rejection feels like rejection to us. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hello Jara, thank you for sharing. As you have noted, each person’s defense mechanism takes on a different form, and how they approach their own insecurities can be coloured by so many different factors — other chart aspects, life experiences, openness to self-honesty and -evolution. Water types have their own too.

The defense mechanism to protect you from rejection feels like rejection to us. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s where self-awareness and mutual compassion in both parties are important, I guess. I mean, Hitler had a Capricorn Moon too, but I’m not about to claim affinity with him or explain away his behaviour by just that alone.

Eric Francis really nailed it. Capricorn moons did not have the luxury of wallowing in emotion — they needed to funnel all that emotion to their brains in order to survive and to help others survive.
Do you think Scarlett O’Hara had a Capricorn moon?

Eric Francis once said my 29+ Cap Moon was like ‘clinging to the edge of a cliff by the fingertips’. So yes, the sense of desperate survival is definitely a theme! And I can say without wavering that I’m a person you want in a crisis — I’ll get people out of a burning building with minimal fuss. And no histrionics. So, thank you!

As for Scarlett — I think she’s a bit too showy for a Cap Moon… Some years ago there was some speculation as to her chart, and I remember reading somewhere that she was supposed to be written as an Aries Sun. Someone speculated that she had a Scorpio Moon — how else could she rise from the ashes?!

Cap Moon fictional characters… hmm, let me think… What’s coming to mind are reliable/faithful sidekicks. Like Banquo to Macbeth, Tonto to the Lone Ranger, and not so much Robin to Batman as Alfred the Butler who cleaned up after them! :D

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Sogyal Rinpoche

Come to the path as humorously aware as possible of the baggage you will be bringing with you: your lacks, fantasies, failings and projections. Blend, with a soaring awareness of what your true nature might be, a down-to-earth and level-headed humility, and a clear appreciation of where you are on your spiritual journey and what still remains to be understood and accomplished. — The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (1992)